Winter, and I’m playing with my camera settings. Finally biting the bullet and learning not to use automatic all the time, but sometimes I wish these modern cameras didn’t have so many bells and whistles. At my age bells and whistles are more challenging. Still, I have to be able to control something in my life – failed with Rod and the dog…

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.Romans 3

in its death throes
hatred rages
shedding the blood
of innocents
as the serpent writhes
and the roaring
of the sea is heard
across the land

The longfin eels of New Zealand are a unique and threatened species with a precarious future. They can take 20 or more years to reach maturity, and reproduce only once In their lives. Once they are mature they leave their freshwater homes and swim many miles out to sea where the eggs are laid and fertilized. They then drift back to New Zealand on the ocean currents, eventually swimming upstream to restart the life cycle.